She became aware as she was speaking that Monica was walking ahead, tipping the ashes at the same time.
Sister Erica waited for the urn to empty and said, ‘Amen.’ It was as good a way as any to bring an end to the proceedings.
Monica said, ‘Thank you, all of you. What happened to Tim?’
A needless question. In full sight of everyone, Tim was sprinting away across the field, not in the direction of the car, but towards the motorway.
Diamond would have a fit.
‘I must stop him,’ Ingeborg said, kicking off her shoes. If her innate sense of occasion hadn’t browbeaten her into reciting Chaucer, she would have grabbed Tim the moment he stepped away. As it was, he was at least thirty yards off already. And he was quick. Bats and hell came to mind.
So it was a sudden transition from the dignity of the scattering to a cross-country chase. Ingeborg prided herself on her fitness. She could run and now she had to. She could feel Diamond’s fury whipping her forward (‘You let him escape? Were you sleeping on the job?’). Striding over the ploughed ground, ignoring the pain of the occasional stone under her feet, she went flat out to try and reduce the advantage.
Tim was bolting like a panicking goat, but he wasn’t a natural runner. He glanced over his shoulder and the long, brown hair got in the way and he had to drag it against his neck. When he sighted Ingeborg, he lost his line and veered left. Then he almost tripped. He staggered several paces just to stay on his feet.
She cut across the angle and gained yards. Her left heel struck a flint and she cried out with the stab of pain, yet she kept going. Action like this was what she craved in all those dull hours in the office. Even so, she was more of a sprinter than a distance runner and she knew from experience she wouldn’t last a long run. She urged herself into another burst of top speed.
Steadily she cut the distance Tim was ahead.
He was slowing appreciably.
Ten yards.
Five.
Two.
She dived. It wasn’t quite a rugby tackle, but she managed to grasp the flapping gilet and halt his by now faltering progress. Tim flung out an arm and she ducked and felt it pass closely over her head. His balance was going. He toppled over and hit the mud and brought Ingeborg with him.
Gasping loudly for air, he tried to fight her off, but she was in the superior position, bearing down on him from behind. She grasped his right arm and yanked it upwards. Then she struck him above the elbow with a karate shuto — the knife hand — that she knew would disable him. She grabbed his other wrist, slammed it against the numb one and handcuffed him. His resistance hadn’t amounted to much and now it was at an end.
She hauled herself up and stood over him. She, too, was panting like a dog.
‘On your feet.’
Not easy when you are pinioned. He achieved a kneeling posture first, and then forced one exhausted leg forward and levered himself up.
Ingeborg looked across the field to where Monica and her sister were standing open-mouthed at what they had just witnessed.
She told Tim, ‘Let’s go.’ And the pair of them dragged their aching limbs across the ground to unite the party again.
Erica, a headmistress by temperament if not by appointment, handed Ingeborg her shoes and said, ‘You both need a good bath after that. What on earth was it about?’
It was too soon after the scattering to go into detail. Ingeborg simply said, ‘My boss said to make sure we all travelled back together.’
While more coffee was being served in the museum office, the next phase of the police operation was under way outside in Blake Street. George the driver had moved the Land Rover and trailer to a new position at a right angle to the kerb on the far side of the Carroll brothers’ van, effectively sealing the street.
As an extra safeguard, Diamond drove a screwdriver through the nearside front tyre of the van and enjoyed the sound of the air escaping. A screwdriver is a versatile tool. He scraped enough paint off the van’s bodywork to satisfy himself that it had been sprayed and was originally silver. Then he smashed the side window and let himself in. Finding the murder weapon was too much to hope for, but after a methodical search he located two plastic replica handguns taped against the sides of the seats. Both were Webley revolvers. He showed them to George.
‘They’re toys, aren’t they?’ George said.
‘Not when a hitman points one at you. You’d take them seriously then. Under the ASBO legislation, it’s an offence to carry replicas in public. I’m thinking these were used in the hold-up at the auction.’
‘Fired, you mean?’
‘No. It’s likely the killers had one working weapon between them. These were used to back up the threat.’
‘Where’s the murder weapon? Still hidden in the van?’
‘They’ll have got rid of it unless they’re bigger idiots than I take them for.’
‘You’ve found your killer, then? Was it Wayne?’
‘They were in it together. They’ll all face a murder rap.’
‘Why? What was the point? Surely not to steal that old lump of stone?’
‘Tell you later,’ Diamond said. He’d spotted the flashing blues and twos at the end of the street. His request for back-up from Bridgwater police had been answered. It was time to interrupt the coffee drinkers.
Taunton police station with its interview facilities was the setting for Diamond’s face to face with Tim Carroll, now mostly cleaned up after the fracas in the field. Ingeborg (fully cleaned) sat beside Diamond. The duty solicitor was on the other side of the table with Tim.
‘I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to make a drama out of this,’ Diamond said to the prisoner after the preliminaries had been got through. ‘You’ve had a stressful time. Joining in the final rites of the man you killed was obviously a step too far. I can understand that.’ He’d found over the years that if you made an effort from the start to reach out to the suspect and understand his point of view, it helped, whoever you were interviewing.
Tim was admitting nothing, but there was a sign that he appreciated the show of sympathy. He pressed his lips together, parted them as if about to speak and then appeared to think better of it.
‘Let’s recap on your first involvement with Professor John Gildersleeve,’ Diamond went on. ‘You were a history student at Reading University, right? A first-year, October 1999 intake. I know you were because I’ve seen the list of undergraduates. You weren’t in Gildersleeve’s department, but as a historian you were offered a place on the dig at North Petherton he organised in the summer vacation. Good experience, you thought. How am I doing so far?’
Tim glanced at the solicitor, who was there to assist the man under arrest and see that he was treated fairly, but was learning the facts of the case as they unfolded. The lawyer simply raised his eyebrows as if to say that only Tim himself could judge how innocuous the information was.
Diamond didn’t wait for a response. ‘We both know what happened. The dig was no dig at all. It had already been dug. As the days went on and nothing was found, you students got discouraged and bored. Someone — and I suspect it was you — had brought cannabis with him and pretty soon Gildersleeve had a spaced-out team, in no condition to continue. It all ended in recrimination and bad odour. The professor was deeply scarred by the experience, more than any of you realised. He had never been too popular in the senior common room and now he became a laughing stock. As dean of the faculty, he felt entitled to respect.’
He paused — an opportunity for Tim to come back at him — but nothing was said. No sweat, he thought. Move on. You haven’t yet played your best cards.